I’m not sure I’ve ever read a book quite like this! At times laugh-out-loud, at times heartfelt, and cleverly written. I actually kind of…loved Reshma? She’s pretty horrible but also intensely likable, and I wanted to clutch her to my chest as often as I wanted to smack her. She reminded me a bit of me in high school, if my parents were rich and I had no friends. I recognized the AP course calculations and cutthroat jostling for class rankings a bit too well, haha. This also contains several scathingly well-done critiques of white privilege and racial microaggressions. I thought Ms. Ratcliffe was pretty terrible. The handling of teen drug abuse is pretty spot-on as well. For all the heavy moments, there are also several balancing deep belly laugh moments. I don’t remember the last time I cackled at so many parts in one book. Reshma makes for a refreshing contemporary anti-heroine and the format/framing of this novel (within a novel?) is also so so fascinating. What an insane read!
~Allison Senecal
Old Firehouse Books 